Four Charged With Assisting Copenhagen Synagogue Terrorist

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The Great Synagogue in central Copenhagen, Denmark, which was attacked earlier this year in a deadly shooting. Photo: Wikipedia.

A little less than a year after a Danish-born terrorist opened fire outside a Copenhagen synagogue during her daughter’s bat mitzvah party, Mette Bentow admits that her life as a practicing Jew in Denmark was indelibly changed.

“It was kind of like putting a bomb underneath the foundations of our lives,” she told The Algemeiner on Thursday, a feeling that “our right to live in peace and quiet and practicing what we believe in Denmark” was forever threatened.

Bentow, whose daughter was celebrating her bat mitzvah when 22-year-old Omar El-Hussein shot and killed Dan Uzan at the Great Synagogue shortly before 1:00 a.m., said she was mainly concerned about “seeing consequences for my children” in Denmark. He daughter was “devastated” after the attack, she said.

Her remarks came as the Danish Justice Ministry announced it had charged four others with assisting Hussein carry out the terrorist attack. Their trial starts March 10.

The day before Hussein’s attack at the synagogue, the gunman killed a Danish filmmaker at a cultural center event in Copenhagen called “Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression.” He was later shot and killed by police at his apartment.

Bentow said she felt “no relief” in Wednesday’s charges, although she was “pleased with the thought that the authorities are not doubting whether this was a terrorist [attack].”

“From that point of view there is some feeling of justice,” she said.

Bentow also noted with outrage recent reports saying the four men had access to cell phones while in prison, a situation Danish Justice Minister Søren Pind called “unsustainable.”